The Benefits of Radio

Do you listen to the radio? According to Pew Research Center, about 8 in 10 Americans ages 12 and older listen to radio in a given week and nearly half of U.S. adults say they sometimes or often get news from radio.

For businesses, these numbers unlock great potential for those looking to create local connections within the community. And for PR practitioners, these numbers illustrate why radio should be a part of your outreach efforts. With National Radio Day just passing on Aug. 20, I am sharing some of the benefits of the format.

One of the biggest advantages of radio is its ability to go anywhere. Whether you are listening in your car on your morning commute or with headphones while on your morning or evening walk, you can take radio just about anywhere and access it on nearly every device.

Another key to radio is how hyperlocal it is, which makes targeted pitching very important to reaching your intended audience. Targeted pitching, like other media outreach, requires thoughtful planning and research that can help you identify on-air opportunities for your business or your client.

Try leaving a station on during your commute or workday to get an idea of a station’s schedule and how you could best weave your message or expertise into their programming. And don’t be afraid to give the station a call, try connecting with reporters to hear what they are working on to see if you could be a good fit.

Adaptable, trusted and interactive, radio outreach could be a potential strategy to reach your business goals. And aside from radio, the explosion of podcasts has also helped fuel audio content creation and influenced us to tailor our stories to the audio format. This has also created more avenues to share with new programs always launching.

If you want to reach the public through the airwaves, contact HMA to find out how we can help.

And for some fun facts on the art of radio, check out my previous #FunFactFriday blog post.